Isra-Mart srl:Lawyers urge EPA action to tackle cross-border pollution

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Two US attorneys general have urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to delay a law which would prevent pollution drifting across state borders from fossil fuel-fired power plants and help downwind states meet pollution reduction targets.

Attorneys general from New York and North Carolina wrote last week to EPA administrator Lisa P Jackson, urging the regulator to finalise its proposed Transport Rule by June this year and set out a clear timeline for implementation. The Transport Rule is designed to ensure downwind states such as New York can from 2012 reduce the amount of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in their air by effectively imposing emission requirements on neighbouring states.

In the letter, New York attorney general Eric T Schneiderman and his North Carolina counterpart Roy Cooper complain that those states affected by upwind pollution have waited since 2008 for such a rule to be implemented, when the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit deemed that the EPA had to require reductions of interstate air pollution.

The EPA proposed a revised Transport Rule to respond to the court's order last June, but the two attorneys general are now concerned that the regulator will fail to implement it by the planned 2012 date, which will affect air quality and residents' health.

"Delaying the final rule would only increase the burden on states by complicating our air quality planning and management responsibilities," they said in the letter. "States adversely impacted by upwind smokestack pollution have patiently waited two and a half years for EPA to take corrective action."

A statement from Schneiderman's office predicts that the benefits of the rule, once implemented, "will be both swift and profound".

Nationally, EPA expects it could yield between $120bn (£73.2bn) and $290bn in annual benefits in 2014 from improved public health, including preventing 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths, 26,000 hospital and emergency room visits and 240,000 cases of aggravated asthma.

Schneiderman points out that these savings would exceed the rule's estimated $2.8bn total annual cost of compliance by more than 40 to 100 times.

"Cutting the amount of air pollution that crosses state lines would avoid hundreds of thousands of illnesses and produce benefits worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually nationwide," he said.

"To realise these enormous benefits and protect New Yorkers' air – and lungs – without delay, the EPA should take prompt action to help stem the dangerous tide of dirty air flowing into New York."